[e2e] end of interest

[Mahesh Balakrishnan]

Is there confusion, perhaps, between e2e as a philosophy and e2e as a
necessity? I agree with Christian that a lot of the exciting new stuff
happening is end-to-end. However: bit-torrent is e2e not because there are
clean fundamental reasons for it to be so (though those may exist), but
because that's the only deployment model open to the designer. I am not
arguing that it shouldn't be e2e, just that nobody really had a choice to
make it anything other than e2e.

Now the follow-up question is --- as John Day pointed out, deployment
difficulties have always been a fact of life, with the router/ISP companies
being the primary reason back in the day. For me that raises the question:
was e2e ever a clean philosophy, or was it simply the only practical
deployment model open to designers twenty years back, as well? How many
systems have been deployed end-to-end when people actually had a choice to do
it some other way?

And - do people have a tendency to use e2e the philosophy to incorrectly
justify system designs that were e2e by necessity? (of course, sometimes the
only deployment model turns out to be the correct one).

(on the road currently, apologies in advance for late responses)

- mahesh


-----Original Message-----
From: Rute Sofia [mailto:rsofia at inescporto.pt]
Sent: Mon 4/21/2008 5:34 AM
To: Christian Huitema
Cc: Mahesh Balakrishnan; end2end-interest at postel.org
Subject: Re: [e2e] end of interest
 
Agree with Christian. And specifically focusing on L3, there seems to be 
other wave coming, with FON and now the more recent Whisher. New 
business roles (virtual ISPs, micro-ISPs) are also emerging.

Rute


Christian Huitema wrote:
> In what world are you living, exactly? What about systems like Skype, or 
> Bit torrent? They are definitely pushing the envelope of end to end 
> designs, are widely deployed, and are not controlled by major corporations.
> 
>  
> 
> *From:* end2end-interest-bounces at postel.org 
> [mailto:end2end-interest-bounces at postel.org] *On Behalf Of *Mahesh 
> Balakrishnan
> *Sent:* Friday, April 18, 2008 5:11 PM
> *To:* end2end-interest at postel.org
> *Subject:* Re: [e2e] end of interest
> 
>  
> 
> In fact there seems to be pushback from both ends --- we can't deploy 
> end-to-end protocols because major companies own the end-host stacks; 
> and we can't push mechanisms deep into the network because ISPs and 
> router companies own the network. Arguably the latter source of pushback 
> played a major role in the emergence of the e2e philosophy; but now we 
> have equally powerful commercial forces on the other side.
> 
> So effectively the only practical mode of deployment seems to be the 
> 'almost' end-to-end middlebox --- one hop away from the end-host but not 
> quite into the network (and the Maelstrom work I presented day before 
> yesterday at NSDI would be one example).
> 
> - mahesh
> 
> --
> http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~mahesh
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: end2end-interest-bounces at postel.org on behalf of David P. Reed
> Sent: Fri 4/18/2008 9:13 AM
> To: Jon Crowcroft
> Cc: 'end2end-interest at postel.org'
> Subject: Re: [e2e] end of interest
> 
> I personally think that the network community has become frustrated with
> the inability to explore end-to-end protocols because the endpoint
> stacks are "locked in" by vendors in proprietary code.
> 
> <snip>
> 


-- 
Rute Sofia, PhD (rsofia at inescporto.pt, +351 22 2094263)
http://www.inescporto.pt/utm/~ian/
Area Leader/Responsa'vel de A'rea
IAN: Internet Architectures and Networking
UTM: Telecommunications and Networking Unit
INESC Porto

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